Biden’s Strict Hydrogen Tax Rules to ‘Loosen,’ Plug Power CEO Expects

December 28, 2023

Plug Power Inc. dubbed the new US rules on how hydrogen projects can qualify for a lucrative tax credit “disappointing,” but also expects restrictions around a key measure of President Joe Biden’s signature climate law to get looser once they are finalized by the Treasury Department. 

Andy Marsh, president and chief executive officer of the Latham, New York-based hydrogen producer, said:

We do expect the regulations to loosen up.

Andy Marsh, president and chief executive officer of the Latham, New York-based hydrogen producer, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “I’ve talked to many senators who tell me it will get easier — not harder.” 

Under the draft proposal issued by the Treasury Department, hydrogen projects would need to adhere to strict environmental requirements to ensure the energy-intensive production of the fuel doesn’t end up causing a influx of climate warming greenhouse gas emissions. 

In order to qualify for the tax credit worth as much as $3 per kilogram, hydrogen projects would need to use electricity from newly built clean energy sources and, starting in 2028, ensure that production occurs during the same hours as those clean sources were operating. The Biden administration is taking public comment on the requirements, which are subject to change before being finalized.  

It remains to be seen if Plug Power’s hydrogen plant that’s under development in Georgia will qualify for any of the tax credit, let alone the maximum amount, Citigroup Inc. analyst Vikram Bagri wrote in a research note following Treasury’s publication of the rules. The hourly-matching requirement dealt Plug a “weak hand” that provided “narrow pathways” for its Georgia plant, the note said.

Marsh, in his interview, said the company’s modeling showed the regulations as written would reduce US hydrogen output 70% by 2030. Plug and other hydrogen producers are planning an aggressive effort to “help straighten the regulations out,” he said.

“We are confident there will be changes once there is a comment period for the regulation,” Marsh said.

READ the latest news shaping the hydrogen market at Hydrogen Central

Biden’s Strict Hydrogen Tax Rules to ‘Loosen,’ Plug Power CEO Expects, December 26, 2023

Plug Power CEO Expresses Discontent Over New Hydrogen Tax Credit Rules

By: Salman Khan
Published: December 26, 2023 


Plug Power Inc.’s CEO, Andy Marsh, has expressed his discontent towards the newly imposed U.S. rules determining the qualification of hydrogen projects for significant tax credits. Despite voicing his disapproval, Marsh is hopeful for the future, anticipating a relaxation of the regulations once they are officially finalized by the Treasury Department.

Marsh’s Outlook on the New Regulations

In a recent interview with Bloomberg Television, Marsh expressed his disappointment with the new rules, viewing them as potential hindrances to the company’s plans. The new regulations pose challenges such as negative gross margins, liquidity concerns, delays in hydrogen plant projects, and regulatory hurdles. These challenges are significant for Plug Power, a hydrogen producer based in Latham, New York, as they directly impact the company’s operations and potential tax incentives.
Financial Struggles Amid Regulatory Challenges

Regardless of Marsh’s optimistic outlook, the company faces financial struggles. Plug Power’s stock has plummeted over 62% year-to-date, and the company is embroiled in a battle against cash burn and poor financial performance. Investors are maintaining a watchful eye on the company’s long-term prospects, as skepticism looms over its ambitious revenue and gross margin targets set for 2027.
Analysts’ Take on Plug Power

Analysts have reacted to the company’s performance by downgrading the stock, underscoring concerns about high capex, inflation, and reliance on subsidies. The new hydrogen tax credit rules have only added to these worries, further compounding the company’s financial challenges. While Marsh has expressed his concerns about the regulations, he remains steadfast in his optimism, believing that the Treasury Department will loosen the reins on the final regulations.

Plug Power CEO says leaked hydrogen tax credit rules could do more harm

Proposed rules would make it much more difficult to claim hydrogen tax credit than industry had hoped

By Larry Rulison

ALBANY TIMES UNION

Dec 20, 2023

COLONIE — The CEO of hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer Plug Power says that the Biden administration may be making a mistake with its proposed clean hydrogen tax credit

The U.S. Treasury Department is expected to release the so-called 45V tax credit that would provide up to a $3 subsidy per kilogram of clean hydrogen produced through electrolyzers, which turn water into hydrogen. The new rules are expected to be officially released by the end of the year.

Currently, most hydrogen is made directly from natural gas, but Plug Power — which is based in Latham — has built its business strategy on producing clean hydrogen using this electrolysis method. The company has been building industrial-scale electrolyzer facilities across the U.S. and also internationally.

The tax credit for clean hydrogen production would essentially put clean, also known as green hydrogen, on par with hydrogen produced from fossil fuels. The tax credit was authorized under the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which included many climate change provisions to encourage the use of more carbon-neutral technologies and fuels.

Earlier this month, several news outlets reported leaked details of the clean hydrogen tax credit rules. Among them is a requirement that to be eligible for the tax credit, a production facility must be directly tied to new clean power sources such as wind or solar farms that have been built within the past three years, along with other stringent rules that would likely sideline potential projects.

Hydrogen advocates have said if the rules are too strict, they may do more harm than good getting the clean hydrogen industry off the ground.

Plug Power CEO Andy Marsh released a statement to the Times Union this week that showed how concerned Plug Power is about the proposed rules.

“As one of the first companies to build clean hydrogen projects at scale, Plug is deeply concerned that the Biden Administration’s rumored guidance on the Clean Hydrogen Production Credit will achieve the exact opposite outcome Congress intended,” Marsh said in the statement. “The administration has the opportunity to achieve tremendous decarbonization and job creation benefits by helping our nascent industry compete with incumbent fossil technologies. That will all be lost if they advance rules which exceed the scope and authority of Congress’ mandate in enacting the Inflation Reduction Act.”

A Treasury Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Some news outlets have reported that the new rules may not be released until early 2024.

APOPHIS IS LOKI BY ANY OTHER NAME

NASA launches mission to intercept ‘God of Chaos’ asteroid as it nears Earth’s orbit

By 

Social Links forAlyssa Guzman

Published Dec. 26, 2023

A NASA spacecraft that recently returned from deep space has been relaunched for a mission to study the “God of Chaos” asteroid as it begins to near Earth’s orbit.

The agency’s spacecraft OSIRIS-REx — now named the OSIRIS-APEX — has been sent off to study the asteroid Apophis’ extremely close flyby of Earth in 2029, the likes of which “hasn’t happened since the dawn of recorded history,” NASA announced.

The spacecraft returned to Earth in September after spending seven years collecting samples from the space rock Bennu.

Apophis, also known as the “God of Chaos,” is expected to fly by Earth on April 13, 2029, about only 20,000 miles away — closer than some manmade satellites — and could even be visible in the Eastern Hemisphere.

3

The space company’s spacecraft OSIRIS-REx — now named the OSIRIS-APEX — returned to Earth this September after spending seven years collecting samples from the space rock Bennu.via REUTERS

The rock, which measures around 370 yards across, only comes this close to Earth every 7,500 years.

Earth’s gravity will affect the space rock as it nears orbit and OSIRIS-APEX will study the aftermath to see “how its surface changes,” according to Amy Simon, the mission’s project scientist.

The effects of Earth are expected to change the length of the asteroid’s day, which is currently around 30.6 hours. It could also cause the “God of Chaos” to experience landslides and quakes.

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The rock, which measures around 370 yards across, only comes this close to Earth every 7,500 years.NASA/JPL-Caltech

“We know that tidal forces and the accumulation of rubble pile material are foundational processes that could play a role in planet formation,” Dani Mendoza DellaGiustina, principal investigator for OSIRIS-APEX at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said in a statement.

“They could inform how we got from debris in the early solar system to full-blown planets.”

The spacecraft will meet the S-type asteroid on April 13, 2029, but will not land on it, rather “operate in proximity” to it for 18 months. Not only will it look at surface changes, but it will map the surface and analyze the rock’s chemical makeup, NASA said.

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Apophis, pictured in 2021, is still five years out from Earth, but when it arrives in April 2029, it will come within 20,000 miles of Earth’s surface.NASA/JPL-Caltech and NSF/AUI/GBO

It will also go within 16 feet of the rock’s surface so it can fire its thrusters downward to see what is stirred up, giving scientists a “peek at the material that lies below.”

Although the rock is still five years away from Earth, scientists will be watching it as it nears its first of six close passes with the sun.

"Mr Jinnah's actions were secular"

Murtaza Solangi, former DG, Radio Pakistan, speaks about Mr Jinnah’s tapes and his vision for Pakistan.




MAMUN M. ADIL: How did you become involved with the Jinnah tapes?
MURTAZA SOLANGI: I joined Radio Pakistan as Director General in June 2008 and while there, I started going through the archived tapes. Mr Jinnah was a subject of interest to me and I went through most of the analogue tapes of his speeches. Very few were digitised, and I was told that since there was no recording facility in Karachi in 1947, a team of engineers from All India Radio in Delhi had been sent to Karachi to record the June 3, August 11 and 14 speeches. However, I only found the June 3 and August 14 speeches, which dealt with the Partition Plan and Transfer of Power respectively. I initiated the digitisation of the analogue tapes, and had the speeches uploaded on Radio Pakistan’s YouTube channel in 2011, along with about 300 other recordings.

MMA: Given that the June 3 and August 14 speeches were made public two years ago, why have they been in the news recently?
MS: Because All India Radio released the master copies of the tapes recently. The quality of their tapes is better than the ones we had.

MMA: What do you think is the impact of the June 3 speech?
MS: Not too much; the June 3 speech gives clues regarding Mr Jinnah’s central thinking of not creating a theocratic state; the August 14 speech says it better. It is important because Mr Jinnah talks about Akbar the Great and the Prophet (PBUH) during whose time Jews and Christians were accorded the same status and respect as Muslims. However, the August 11 speech is the most important of them all.

MMA: What attempts did you make to retrieve the August 11 speech?
MS: I emailed the BBC in London and they replied that they did not have it, but it is still possible that there is a copy somewhere; All India Radio may have a copy. I am still making an effort to recover it. My suspicion is that somebody destroyed the tape in Pakistan.
In this speech Mr Jinnah said, “You are free to go to your temples…” and that religion has nothing to do with the state. I spoke to many people who worked under Zia-ul-Haq and according to them, as well as several books and reports, the tapes had been taken from the Radio Pakistan archives and destroyed.

MMA: Why would they do that?
MS: Because of the content. In this speech Mr Jinnah said, “You are free to go to your temples…” and that religion has nothing to do with the state. I spoke to many people who worked under Zia-ul-Haq and according to them, as well as several books and reports, the tapes had been taken from the Radio Pakistan archives and destroyed. Mr Jinnah was a secular person. The original speech that he was supposed to read on August 14, during the transfer of power, had religious phrases such as “so help me God” but Mr Jinnah chose not to read out these phrases. His actions were also secular. For example, just before the creation of Pakistan, Mr Jogindernath Mandal, a scheduled cast Hindu from East Pakistan, was inducted into the Constituent Assembly and was given the important portfolio of Minister of Law. If Pakistan was going to be an Islamic, theocratic state how could the ministry of law be headed by a Hindu? That is why I feel that the tape was destroyed – because of its content.

MMA: What would the impact of the August 11 recording be if it was found?
MS: To be honest, even if Mr Jinnah rose from his grave and made the speech it would probably not make much difference today. The powerful religious lobbies and those that have militant wings and the power to coerce people would probably lynch Mr Jinnah today if he was alive. That said, the speech is important because of its historic significance – it would refute the lies by some politicians and historians who project that he wanted a theocratic state. The speech also has historic value. The other day, Geo did an enactment of it in Urdu – and someone asked me if it was authentic and I told them it was originally in English. The speech would definitely help people who believe in Mr Jinnah’s vision of a pluralist and democratic Pakistani state. It would be an important tool for people who believe the founder of their country did not want a theocratic state but one where every citizen is treated equally. I am still searching for it by contacting people in Pakistan and India, and I am also fighting for that vision by raising my voice on various forums.

MMA: Did you come across any other tapes during the digitisation process at Radio Pakistan?
MS: We found Liaquat Ali Khan’s last speech which was made on October 16, 1951. It is a few minutes in length and ends with gunshots being fired. I also found a speech made by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on April 27, 1972, when he laid the foundation stone of the National Broadcasting House of Radio Pakistan in Islamabad. Someone who worked as a technician gave it to us, so miracles do happen. It was very well written and powerful. Mr Bhutto said that radio, as the cheapest and most portable medium, has the capacity to disseminate information, education and empowerment to people and that Radio Pakistan must do so.

MMA: Do you think Radio Pakistan has fulfilled that vision?
MS: No, because consecutive governments have used it as a government rather than a public broadcaster. To an extent, during Mr Bhutto’s time a lot of good public interest programming was developed including Taleem-e-Balighaan. But to turn Radio Pakistan into an institution like the BBC, you need educated people, who are given independence. This was never done. Radio Pakistan was used as a source of government propaganda. People listened to Radio Pakistan because it was the only station at the time; this changed in 2004 when private radio stations started coming up. Now, nobody cares about Radio Pakistan or PTV.

MMA: Why did you leave Radio Pakistan?
MS: On May 3, 2013, I was told that the management was pleased to cancel my contract.

MMA: What plans did you have for the digitised speeches?
MS: I had initiated a project with the help of the US Government to digitise 3.5 million minutes of historical speeches made by several political leaders including Mr Jinnah, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Mujibur Rahman, Feroz Khan Noon and Zia-ul-Haq. I was planning to create a portal that could be accessed by the general public for free, but would be charged for other broadcasters.

MMA: Why were these digitised archives not publicised?
MS: When I was at Radio Pakistan I didn’t do much on the publicity front. I was running from pillar to post to managing salaries, launching a website (the first bilingual one for a government organisation) and setting up social media accounts for Radio Pakistan. When I left, Radio Pakistan had over 30,000 followers on Twitter (All India Radio had 500). Today All India Radio has more; the babus who came after me drove everything into the ground.

AURORA/ DAWN
Published in Nov-Dec 2013

Mamun M. Adil

Mamun M. Adil is Manager, BD&R, DAWN. mamun.adil@gmail.com

COMMENTS (28) CLOSED

NABEELAUG 16, 2017 04:42AM
Great work Sir! We salute you for this...

SIMBAAUG 16, 2017 04:25PM
It is interesting the way well meaning, educated and capable people are grounded in Pakistan.

K P RAOAUG 16, 2017 06:09PM
Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. It was farsightedness of Mr. Jinnah to have appointed Mr, Mandal an eminent personality as Minister of Law. Later-on this very Mr. Mandal was a member of legislative council in India and was a reputed member of Constitution drafting committee under Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar the Architect of Constitution of India and was much admired here.

BRRAUG 17, 2017 03:08AM
Of all the thousands of speeches Jinnah gave where he demanded a seperate state because muslims are a separate nation, people can point to one solitary instant where jinnah acts benevolent towards minorities - and everyone latches on to that single speech to declare jinnah a great secular leader - conveniently ignoring the simple fact that thousands of speeches were given by him where he did just the opposite - demand separation from hindus on religious grounds. If that is not misleading and hypocritical, what is?

M. EMADAUG 17, 2017 01:39PM
Mr. Jinnah did different act at different times.

RAJIV RANJANAUG 17, 2017 09:51PM
Even Donald Trump talks nice things sometimes.

AFMAUG 18, 2017 12:21AM
If we want to make this great state of Pakistan happy and prosperous we must concentrate wholly and solely on the well being of the people, You are free. Free to go to your Mosques, free to go to your temples, or any other place of worship in the state of Pakistan. My guiding principles well be #Justice and fair play without any Prejudice or ill well, without any partiality or favouritism. We must root out the poison of Corruption and Nepotism our inspiration will be the golden principles of the Holy Prophet Peace be upon him and I know that with your support and cooperation, I can look forward to the day when Pakistan becomes one of the greatest nations of the world.

AKRAMAUG 18, 2017 10:43AM
One day the fact that during the last days of Jinnah he had expressed his regret on creation of Pakistan will come to light. Which deep inside every Pakistani might already be feeling.

VIJAYAUG 18, 2017 10:50AM
@k p rao . Thanks for sharing your information !

VIJAYAUG 18, 2017 10:51AM
@BRR . You nailed it sir !!

VIJAYAUG 18, 2017 10:52AM
@M. Emad . I agree.You are absolutely correct.

PAKISTANIAUG 18, 2017 05:50PM
@SIMBA .Why is it interesting?

DARVINAUG 18, 2017 09:45PM
A person Jinnah and Nehru divided a country on the basis of religion but you still thought he was secular. He demanded special privilege in India to Muslims or separate country. His party started riots in 1946 in West Bengal, which gulp 1 million people at the time of partition. He decided Pakistan as Islamic Republic of Pakistan but you still feel by single speech that he was secular.

ALIAUG 18, 2017 10:32PM
Jinnah was always secular. Jinnah's speeches before partition did demand a separate state based on religion as the muslims of India were marginalized and discriminated against. After partition, he promoted secularism has he didn't want the minorities in newly created Pakistan to suffer the same marginalization and discrimination that the muslims went thru before partition. That would have lost the essence of why he wanted Pakistan. The Pakistan of today is not Jinnah's Pakistan.

UZAIR AHMEDAUG 20, 2017 06:14AM
well! poor try to change mindset about Jinnah. cheapest way to get famous @ Murtaza Solangi. Go get a life!!

READERAUG 20, 2017 08:51AM
If Mr. Jinnah was secular why did he fight for a separate state for muslims of India?

RAFIAUG 20, 2017 09:34AM
@Akram there is no regret sir. Couldn't be more proud of being a Pakistani. Not sure if I can even imagine walking around in India with my head down as a second class citizen. Muslims in India are still having to prove their loyalty. We totally should be grateful for not having to deal with that today. Thank God and Quaid-e-Azam, for Pakistan.

ASEEMAUG 21, 2017 12:17PM
@AFM "You are free. Free to go to your Mosques, free to go to your temples, or any other place of worship" Sounds more like lip service. Present day's Pakistan is exactly opposite of what was presumably promised. Even Ahmediya's are relegated to third class, leave aside other minority religions. Talking about freedom to visit places of worship, neither their lives, nor property are safe.

RICHARDAUG 22, 2017 12:28AM
i really believe had Jinnah lived long enough relationship with India would have more positive.

SANDIPAUG 22, 2017 01:04AM
@Rafi Aren't you having to prove your loyalty to Pakistan all the time as well? Just say something criticizing the khakhis and then see how your life is reduced to living hell.

KHANAUG 22, 2017 09:40AM
I was annoyed by Solangi the former director of Radio Pakistan how he addressed Qaid Azam as Mr. Jinnah. I hate people who get high post and not learned to pick words .

AFNAN GHUMMANAUG 24, 2017 07:18AM
Actually you wanted to prove him secular so you didn't overlook the entire history... You just took what you had to... Once quaid offered his used water to a hindu in a gathering he refused to drink that by saying that why should he dirnk that water which is used by a muslim... Then he offered it to a man(muslim) with turkish cap on his head he drank the water without any question.... Then quaid explained This is the difference between muslim and hindu I can live with muslim but can't with a hindu....

AKBAR AHMEDSEP 12, 2017 11:25AM
@Sandip . Please survey( even briefly) the reality of the very diverse electronic media in Pakistan you may find reality quite different.

RAZVISEP 12, 2017 11:57AM
@BRR It will be a great favour to many like me if you can forward the links to just a few hundreds of these thousands of these speeches. At the same time you will do a great favour to yourself by reading an unconsecrated biography of the Quid.

OMARSEP 12, 2017 12:43PM
Great work sir

DIGGER DOWN UNDERSEP 12, 2017 02:58PM
Thank you Mr Solangi for your contribution to the literature about Mr Jinnah. Destroying a historical record is like demolishing a heritage building, structure, a church, temple or a mosque. Whoever was responsible for destroying Mr Jinnah's speech committed a serious crime and must be awarded punishment, even after their death.

JAAMSEP 12, 2017 02:59PM
Mullah-establishment duo would have killed Jinnah if he were to say " not a theocratic state"! This is a new Pakistan invented by top brass and sacrosanct mullahs. What a tragedy!

ABLSEP 12, 2017 03:54PM
Pakistan's biggest loss was the passing away of the Quaid during its infancy year. The whole logic behind the creation of Pakistan was not translated into the diverse society, which Pakistan inherited. The institutional development was left to those leaders, who had no idea of secular governance. Since then, and until now after 70 years, the direction is not correct. People who come forward with Jinnah's ideology are blamed with various names and we continue to struggle and continue to search the real meaning of Pakistan.

The ‘I do’ that leads to DNA dilemma
Almost half of Pakistani women are married to their first cousins, according to the Pakistan demographic and health survey.

“I just want to have a normal child,” said 30-year-old Shazia from Jhelum. She had travelled miles across the country in the quest for a baby that would survive beyond the age of seven.

Married to her second cousin, she has experienced two miscarriages, one induced abortion, and the loss of two children who died at the ages of seven and three.

Sitting inside the air-conditioned room in one of the biggest hospitals in Karachi, Shazia looked visibly anxious. Accompanied by her sister on this long journey to the genetic counselling clinic, she shared her woes.

“All of my children die,” she said. “They appear normal during the pregnancy stage, but six months after their birth, they start exhibiting signs of abnormality and experience intense pain before passing away.”

After the birth of her first two children, who endured a life of agony, she made the difficult decision to terminate her third pregnancy, fearing another child might suffer the same fate. Following this, her next two pregnancies ended in miscarriages.

Shazia’s husband is her mother’s first cousin. Similar to many consanguineous families, hers has a prevalence of cancers among its members.

Consanguinity involves the mating between “two individuals characterised by the sharing of a common ancestor(s)”, increasing the likelihood that a child will inherit two copies of the same disease.

Simply put, we each have two copies of every gene, inherited from both our parents. If both the mother and father possess a flawed copy of a gene, the likelihood of the child inheriting both defective copies increases. Since family members share similar genes, the chances of the child receiving these faulty gene copies also rise.

Shazia visited Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) to inquire about the possibility of having a healthy baby in her next pregnancy. Her optimism is not unfounded because, even when both parents carry the same recessive disorder, meaning they have a faulty copy of a gene without it manifesting as an illness, the probability of their child inheriting both faulty copies is 25 per cent — there remains a 3/4th chance that their child will be healthy, albeit potentially a carrier.
Autosomal recessive disorders

Autosomal recessive disorders are a specific type of condition where both parents are carriers. “Everyone is a carrier of something or the other,” explained Dr Salman Kirmani, Chair and Associate Professor in the Division of Women and Child Health and a geneticist at AKUH.

“On average, it is believed that a human being is a carrier of two or three different diseases, but they may not be aware of it. Marrying within the family increases the likelihood of carriers coming together compared to marrying outside,” he added.

Autosomal recessive disorders — Image courtesy Rare Disorders Society



This doesn’t imply that if you have four children, one will have the disease, one will be entirely healthy, and two will be carriers. Instead, it signifies that each time fertilisation occurs — during conception — there is a 25pc chance of an unaffected child, a 25pc chance of an affected child, and a 50pc chance of a child being a carrier. Each of these probabilities is independently applicable every time fertilisation takes place.

This phenomenon explains why certain genetic diseases, such as thalassemia, cystic fibrosis, and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), are more prevalent in Pakistan compared to Western countries, given our high consanguinity rate.

As Shazia’s children have all passed away, it is challenging to determine whether the condition they suffered from was indeed genetic. She is not the only one facing this predicament.

According to the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017-18, almost half of the women between the ages of 15 and 49 in Pakistan reported marrying their first cousins.

Infographic of marriage between relatives among women aged 15-49 years — Gallup Pakistan


These numbers don’t account for people within the same community. For example, Dr Kirmani mentioned, “If you ask a couple who come from a particular community, they may say, we don’t marry our cousins. But because they are a small, close-knit community, they share common ancestors.”

Another common practice is people marrying within the same caste, thereby perpetuating generations of consanguinity. “In Pakistan, there are geographically isolated villages where members frequently marry their first cousins for generations.”

Akin to Shazia, Akbar and Fatima walked into the genetic counselling clinic with their two children, aged three and one. Both boys exhibited stunted growth and delayed motor responses compared to average children their ages.

The parents’ mothers were siblings, making them first cousins. They were also related on their paternal side, further increasing the consanguinity level between the two.

Concerned about the health of their next child, they came to the clinic hoping to discover ways to reduce the risks of abnormalities in future pregnancies.

This wasn’t the first time they sought medical advice. They had previously consulted a doctor in Lahore who simply attributed their situation to “cousin marriage,” placing the blame squarely on their decisions.

However, dismissing the sociocultural context that contributes to cousin marriages and laying blame solely on individuals is unfair.
The blame game

Dr Kirmani strongly believes that consanguineous unions are often subjected to oversimplified criticism instead of nuanced analysis.

“In educated circles in Pakistan, especially among doctors, there is often a strong stance against cousin marriages. Couples are made to feel guilty, as if ‘you married your cousin, so this happened,’” he said.

“How heartless is that?” he exclaimed. “If I were to conduct a lecture with a hundred doctors in attendance, and I asked how many of them are married to their cousins or have parents who are cousins, half the room would likely raise their hands. Some might be so embarrassed that they wouldn’t even raise their hand.”

Consanguinity is so “culturally ingrained” in our society, he pointed out, that it does not make sense to attack individual choices.

People assume that Dr Kirmani would be more against cousin unions as he is a geneticist. However, he believes that marriage between a man and a woman is their business. “I, as a doctor or any government or religious person, should not influence what they decide to do. The basic principle here is autonomy.”

Certainly, there are risks, and doctors should educate people about them. However, it’s crucial to understand that even in a non-consanguineous union, there is a “one or two per cent chance of birth defects.” There is also always a chance that someone outside one’s family could be a carrier of a faulty gene.

Many advocate for laws prohibiting cousin marriages. In fact, in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, provincial assemblies passed a law a decade ago making thalassemia testing compulsory for married couples.

However, like other laws, this one not only lacks enforcement but also doesn’t consider potential adverse consequences, particularly for marginalised groups. “Let’s suppose a man and a woman [in a village or a close community] get the test done, and they both turn out to be positive,” says Dr Kirmani. “There are preparations for the wedding at home, everything is happening — now what? Will you say, ‘Go your separate ways’?”

Moreover, there are no strict measures in place to keep such information confidential. “In our society, everything is often blamed on the woman, and nothing is kept private.” If the couple decides to not proceed with their union, the man is more likely to find a partner outside the family “without ever disclosing that he is a carrier”, while the woman would be “condemned in the whole community in the village that ‘iska khoon kharab hai, isse shaadi nahi karna [her blood is bad, don’t marry her]’.”

Given the potentially dire consequences of population testing, laws regarding genetic testing must be carefully considered, taking local contexts into account. Furthermore, such laws also tend to increase distrust of the medical community among groups in a society that already harbours mistrust for doctors, argued Dr Kirmani.

On one hand, “we can’t have a purely medical viewpoint and say that ‘it is stupidity, why should we let our nation do stupid things, we should enforce [laws] because people don’t have a mind of their own.’ On the other hand, we shouldn’t have a purely cultural standpoint that ‘since it is part of our culture, we should not talk about it’,” he said.

World map showing the percentages of cousin marriages in each country. — Image courtesy Alan H Bittles/ World Scientific Publishing


Educating people about the risks also comes with its own challenges. “How do you explain a disease to the couple they have never seen or witnessed? How will you truly educate them and present them with an accurate picture so they can make an informed decision?” he asked.

He finds it easy to counsel people when the disease runs in the family because those individuals have witnessed the negative impacts of the illness closely.

However, it becomes challenging when doctors must be aware of the socioeconomic disparities between their patients. “I can’t have double standards, telling someone from an educated family in Defence to ‘get this $500 test done, you will know all the diseases, then it’s your choice.’ But if I go into a [rural] community, I say ‘Khabardar! Cousin marriage nahi karna [Don’t you dare marry your cousin].’ I have to maintain the same standard.”
The good, the bad and the ugly

To further complicate the issue, Dr Kirmani pointed to some perceived ‘benefits’ of consanguineous unions. “Imagine you are a parent living in a remote area. You know all the boys because they are from your family. If you want to marry outside the family, then you will have to marry [someone that lives] like 200 km away from your own village.”

“Once that marriage is done, your daughter is gone, and you won’t be able to see her at all.” The “desire to keep the child close” prompts people to marry their children to relatives. Secondly, different villages have different customs, and some parents worry about the potential treatment of their daughter in a distant household that differs from their own.

Furthermore, studies have found that “being married to a first cousin on either the father’s or mother’s side was associated with a decreased likelihood of abuse when compared with another relationship” in Pakistan.

This perception encourages parents to marry their daughters to close relatives in the hope that if a conflict arises, they would be able to easily intervene.

In 2019, The BMJ medical journal reported the case of Javed Tahir in Islamabad, who has suffered from muscular dystrophy since childhood. The genetic condition, which ran in his family, would “lead to total paralysis” gradually. Tahir, committed to breaking the tradition, wanted to be the first in his family to marry outside.

He looked for a partner outside their family for a decade but was unsuccessful due to his condition — leading to him eventually marrying his own cousin.

Situations like Tahir’s illustrate that often it is difficult, even impossible, for individuals to break the cycle.

Similarly, women in rural areas with limited interactions with men outside their families reduce their chances of meeting potential suitors who are not related to them.

The risks surrounding cousin marriages can be understood against this backdrop. For instance, consider a family with a history of thalassemia. They had a baby who died at the age of 10 due to complications of thalassemia, as most children in this country do not survive between 10 and 20 years of age.

“Now they want to have another child. You test them and find out that they are carriers. Then you inform them that their child would have a 25pc chance of having the disease,” said Dr Kirmani.

As a doctor, he can offer them a prenatal diagnosis. Prenatal diagnosis occurs when the woman becomes “pregnant naturally and carries the pregnancy through with routine procedures until about 12 or 13 weeks of gestation.” At 12 weeks, doctors can perform a test called Chorionic villus sampling (CVS), and at 14 weeks, they can conduct another test called amniocentesis.

“Amniocentesis involves sampling the amniotic fluid around the baby, while CVS entails taking a small biopsy of the placenta, where the blood mixes between the mother and the baby. But it has baby tissue, so the baby’s DNA can be extracted out of it. The purpose of both is to retrieve the baby’s DNA.”

The extracted DNA is then examined for common genetic diseases, such as thalassemia in this case. If there is a 75pc chance that the gene for it is not inherited, the parents can be reassured, and they can choose to continue the pregnancy. However, if the 25pc chance results in a positive diagnosis for the illness, what options do the parents have?

“There is no treatment [for thalassemia]. So, their options are that they can terminate the pregnancy … It’s a personal choice,” the geneticist said.

“You can’t go on a warpath, telling parents they should suffer the consequences because they were ‘stupid’ enough to take this chance. Offer them options. Don’t dictate to them, saying, ‘You must terminate’ or ‘Oh no, it’s really wrong to terminate’. Put the options in front of them. Help them decide. This is called ‘shared decision-making’ in medical terms. Share their burden so that they don’t feel guilty.”

He went on to say that there is a great sense of guilt and responsibility, especially for mothers who often blame themselves, thinking it’s their fault or that something went wrong during the pregnancy. For both medical and ethical reasons, it is a sound decision for diseases associated with suffering, misery, pain, and a shortened life or an extremely low quality of life. Thalassemia indeed fits into that category.

In other countries, including neighbouring Iran, the survival rate has gone up to 40 or even 50 years of age, thanks to the availability of resources. “Our survival is not beyond 20, and it’s 20 miserable years of blood transfusion every two weeks,” lamented Dr Kirmani.

“If you go to any thalassemia centre, you will see something akin to an international airport. There would be a big lounge where 25 to 50 children would be sitting and watching television while receiving blood transfusions. Often, these kids become iron-overloaded, leading to major complications affecting their hearts and all their internal organs. It is a horrible existence. They cannot attend school regularly because they are constantly stuck in this cycle. It is a never-ending cycle once it begins.”

Thalassemia centres have more of a “petrol pump” approach, transfusing blood for any and every reason. The medicines to reduce iron levels are also very expensive and have various side effects.

Blood transfusion at Sundas Foundation Centre on the World Thalassaemia Day — APP/File


“It takes a lot of resources, a lot of time, and completely shatters their quality of life — yet [the children] still die. They die [after living] a very poor existence,” he added.

Even though there is now a cure for it abroad — a bone marrow transplant — it is extremely expensive and inaccessible for most in Pakistan. There are 10 million β-thalassemia carriers in the country and around 5,000 children are diagnosed with thalassemia every year.

“How many of them can receive this treatment?” the doctor asked, rhetorically.

Costs and treatments aside, it is an extremely painful experience for the parents, leading them into an “endless cycle of poverty” where, for 20 or so years, they are “financially and emotionally devastated. They have to compromise for the other children in the house because the mother cannot pay attention to them, and the father has to earn for the endless transfusions.”

He pointed towards the immense lack of awareness since these parents do engage with doctors, but no one effectively counsels them to prevent having more children with the disease. “We have seen two or three kids [with the disease] in the same family.”

“If they [people] are not listening to you, why are they not trusting you?” he asked the medical professionals. “Talk to the moulvis, talk to the community leaders, do the outreach. If we sit in our crystal palaces and imagine that we are the educated and they don’t know what they are doing, this cycle will continue.”
The $2 million cure

Similar to Thalassemia, Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) poses a unique set of challenges to the Pakistani population due to its frequent occurrence as well as “limited resources and access to healthcare” in the country.

Even though it is a common disease in Pakistan, it seldom gets the attention it deserves. “It does not get the visibility of thalassemia because instead of 20 years, you die within two years of age.”

In SMA, the child is born healthy, but by six months of age, “parents realize that something is wrong.”

“The [baby] is not moving its head, it’s not moving its limbs, and it slowly loses power in its muscles, it stops breathing, or it has very shallow breathing, it can’t swallow, so it starts swallowing the milk that goes down its lungs, they get pneumonia, and it dies,” said Dr Kirmani.

The doctor has seen multiple families where two or three children suffer from SMA.

He proceeded to show me the first gene therapy vial for the disease in the world, framed in his office.

Novartis, an multinational company launched a “managed access programme” where essentially they would provide a hundred doses of the treatment around the world, given how expensive it is. The Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec) treatment costs a whopping $2.1 million.

The Zolgensma treatment adminstered by Dr Salman Kirmani — Author


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“They didn’t call it a lottery because they couldn’t. But that is what it was. Every doctor worldwide who has a patient enters their patient’s details and everything. After every two weeks, the lottery comes out. And the one whose name is selected gets the dose.

Dr Kirmani entered 50 names in the ‘lottery,’ but only five of them got the dose. The other 45 children passed away.

“Parents used to call and ask, ‘Doctor sahab, did we get our name in the lucky draw or not?’”

Waiting is a fatal process for most. He called two families to congratulate them that their child’s name was selected and to bring the child. The parents told him that the baby died a week prior.

“Can you imagine getting that phone call?” he asked.

Considering the dire consequences and the harsh reality of these illnesses, the debate surrounding consanguinity becomes even more intricate. On one hand, the principle of individual autonomy is paramount; on the other, the lack of resources for the majority of the country’s population cannot be disregarded.

Nevertheless, in light of the ineffectiveness of laws and policies in Pakistan, the issue cannot be simplified or resolved with a broad stroke of universal bans. A collective effort is needed, involving medical professionals, religious scholars, and local communities, to engage with each other and come up with pragmatic and realistic solutions that consider the practical challenges faced by the majority of people in the country.

Perhaps, only then we can prevent many others like Shazia from pleading to have a healthy child.

Header image: Microsoft Bing’s Image Creator

Wara Irfan 

Published December 4, 2023

The author is a KAS-Dawn.com media fellow, interested in the intersection of gender, visual cultures and lived experiences.


Cousin marriages
Marriage between cousins
Thalassemia: get tested

PAKISTAN

POWER AND ITS DISCONTENTS

How do those without power, both literally and metaphorically, navigate the challenges in dealing with those that do?


Ijlal Naqvi 

DAWN

Published December 24, 2023

LONG READ 

Islamabad is a planned city, the federal capital and markedly less violent than the major metropolis of Karachi. The state, in various forms, is much more present than is the case in other Pakistani cities. State services in general are above average, electricity supply is more regular and residents have more personal connections to the state.

By studying Islamabad, one sees Pakistani state institutions at their highest level of effectiveness. If claim-making based on formal rights is going to work anywhere in Pakistan, it will be in Islamabad.

The primary site for my ethnography was at multiple subdivision offices of the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO), where I followed the employees through all aspects of their work, and observed their interactions with citizens who came to the office.

The subdivision is the lowest level of the IESCO organisational hierarchy and fulfils most of the public-facing requirements concerning electricity supply, including new connections, billing, maintenance and disconnections. In addition to working with the IESCO employees, I interviewed and spent time among the residents of Islamabad in their capacity as electricity consumers, including in the katchi abadis, such as 44 Quarter in Islamabad.

Islamabad has 34 katchi abadis, 11 of which are notified for regularisation per the Punjab Katchi Abadi Act 1992. Regularisation leads to a formal lease of the land and access to all state services for the occupants of the katchi abadi, but it is not without some drawbacks.

For the Capital Development Authority (CDA, the public agency that provides municipal services in Islamabad) to regularise the 44 Quarter katchi abadi, where I did most of the fieldwork presented here, regularisation would involve planning the housing of the katchi abadi so that it would conform to building standards and thus contain fewer housing plots.

How do those without power, both literally and metaphorically, navigate the challenges in dealing with those that do? An ethnographic study of the residents of Islamabad’s katchi abadis attempts to deal with the city’s electricity distribution infrastructure offers an enlightening view. Eos presents excerpts from Access to Power: Electricity and the Infrastructural State in Pakistan by Ijlal Naqvi, published by Oxford University Press

Which households would not be accommodated and where the surplus households would be relocated are points of contention that have stalled the regularisation process, since the proposed relocation site is much further from Islamabad. However, so long as 44 Quarter is not regularised, the residents are denied a document called a No Objection Certificate (NOC), which is issued by the CDA to certify that the applicant for the electricity connection is the legal owner of the land.

Without an NOC, the residents of 44 Quarter cannot get legal electricity connections.





MOBILISING COLLECTIVE CLAIMS

One of my key informants in 44 Quarter is Liaqat who, like almost all the residents of 44 Quarter, is Christian. Liaqat is approximately 35-40 years old, quite short and slightly built. The streets of 44 Quarter are uneven, sloping and made of packed dirt. A tiny, uncovered drain a few inches wide runs in front of the houses on Liaqat’s street. I can touch both sides of the alley at the same time.

Near Liaqat’s front door is an electricity pylon, on which I’ve seen a barefoot boy of about five climbing and playing. Children of very young ages are everywhere, usually playing unattended. I am often passed by bicycles and motorcycles on this street when I visit. Men and women are often talking in the street, frequently congregating around doorways, which seem to be open more often than not.

Liaqat’s home in 44 Quarter is a three-story brick-and-cement building that has not seen any new paint in some time. Liaqat and his wife and children live on the ground floor of their house, and other members of his extended family live on the upper two stories. The two rooms on the ground floor are a living room and a bedroom. The floor is bare cement. The ceiling is perhaps seven feet high and gives me a distinctly claustrophobic feeling when I stand.

There is a small fridge in the bedroom — that is the only visible appliance. Located in the middle of an affluent residential area, 44 Quarter is well-situated for access to employment and municipal services. The same electricity lines that serve the well-off neighbourhoods run through 44 Quarter. For most of its history, 44 Quarter was served by undocumented connections, known in Urdu as kunda.

According to Liaqat, the type of theft occurring in Islamabad’s katchi abadis occurs with the participation of the distribution company employees. Liaqat tells me, “The same money, instead of going to IESCO’s treasury, went to police and IESCO staff.”

Liaqat says that the distribution company employees were paid off to leave illegal connections alone, as were the police. Although I found no distribution company employees admitting to their participation in this specific case, many of them accepted such arrangements as being relatively common. Some 11 years prior to the time of my study — probably in 1998 — 44 Quarter’s illegal connections were forcibly taken down in an army-backed intervention.

The army’s role in power sector management came about at the invitation of the elected prime minister Nawaz Sharif. In an admission of his government’s incompetence at public administration, which foreshadowed his own government’s removal in a coup the following year, Nawaz Sharif asked the Pakistani army to take over the management of electricity distribution companies in order to reduce theft. IESCO and the other distribution companies had serving army personnel assigned to them, including at senior management levels. The chief executives of the distribution companies were replaced by brigadiers on deputation from their usual military assignments.

The residents of 44 Quarter responded to the disconnection of their electricity supply by forming a committee to approach the brigadier in charge of IESCO. The gist of the argument they put to the brigadier was that if they were not allowed kunda connections, they should be allowed legal connections.

My informants at 44 Quarter feel no qualms about the kunda connections. Liaqat tells me that, “It’s our right [to electricity]. If you won’t give it to us, then we’ll take it like this.” Another informant states that it is “inevitable, in this heat” that people will get electricity connections however they can.

The 44 Quarter residents see electricity as something fundamental for decent living, to which they, too, should have access, and their appeal to the brigadier was on largely humane rather than legalistic grounds. The meeting of the 44 Quarter residents’ committee with the IESCO brigadier went well.

The compromise reached by the parties was that 44 Quarter would be served by a few documented meters, but that all the wiring and management of the system beyond the meters would be the responsibility of the residents. This decision served IESCO by ensuring that 44 Quarter residents would pay for their electricity consumption and met the needs of 44 Quarter residents by ensuring their electricity supply.

These arrangements, however, are distinctly an exception to the rules, which define a consumer as “a person or his successor-in-interest who purchases or receives electrical power for consumption and not for delivery or re-sale to others, including a person who owns or occupies a premise where electrical power is supplied.”

The provision of electricity for delivery and resale to others is the job of a distribution company. The brigadier’s decision contravenes these rules, but IESCO’s consumer services manual limits service provision to applicants who can provide “ownership proof of the premises”, and it thus cannot be provided to individual katchi abadi residents so long as the regularisation process is incomplete.

In the absence of NOCs and legal individual connections, the committee representing residents of 44 Quarter accepted the compromise of communal metering. The residents of 44 Quarter would be allowed a single communal connection at commercial rates (higher than domestic rates).

The committee managed the process and the money for connecting the several hundred households of 44 Quarter to the communal meter. Shoaib was a member of that committee (he mentions that the brigadier was a ‘very nice person’) and tells me that his inclusion was on the grounds that he is considered educated.

Shoaib lives in 44 Quarter and is employed by the residents’ committee to manage the billing and maintenance of the electrical system. He says, “The committee met for two-three days [prior to the negotiation with IESCO]. They formed a constitution for the committee (I asked to see this later in our conversation, he smiled and said that they made it once upon a time and that no one knew anything about it now).”

The committee members are the respected elders of the community. Shoaib has, in fact, taken on many of the functions of the distribution company. He manages billing, collects the money, gives receipts, keeps records, and also handles the maintenance of 44 Quarter’s electricity system. Shoaib does many of the same tasks a subivision officer would. He also handles situations where there is difficulty in paying bills.

44 Quarter prints its own bills with instructions on the back for making payments. Paying in instalments is not unusual, and sometimes the committee can reduce the bill somewhat. Strictly commercial arrangements are also not observed for churches and those individuals whom the committee deems needy and worthy of help. Instead, the moral underpinnings of the collective organisation for service delivery are reflected in the departure from commercial logics.

Each household is charged a fixed amount based on an assessment of the household’s consumption. I ask how they determine the charges for each household. Shoaib says he knows every house on every street. They are “like a family.” He knows everyone’s name, and his paternal grandfather’s name. We have no formality in going to each other’s houses. Paying for extra facilities (fridge, a motor for pumping up water) costs up to extra 300 per month.

Shoaib is confident that he knows the ins and outs of every household. His deep local knowledge is essential to keeping the communal system going. The residents of 44 Quarter have mobilised on the basis of collective solidarity and make their claim for service delivery on a moral basis.

They do not exercise purely commercial reasoning in determining how much each household must pay. Instead, assessments are based on Shoaib’s intimate knowledge of each household. Shoaib attributes his position to his good character and reputation.

Islamabad has 34 katchi abadis, 11 of which are notified for regularisation per the Punjab Katchi Abadi Act 1992


IMAGINING RIGHTS

Sharing of a common meter is also present in 75 Quarter and 50 Quarter (two other katchi abadis in Islamabad where I interviewed residents), but their committees have been less scrupulous than Shoaib. Collection for the municipal electricity bill is handled by a leadership committee, comprised of katchi abadi residents. Neither in 75 Quarter nor in 50 Quarter was anyone able to explain how the current leaders obtained their position or describe what was entailed in being a “leader”.

Their inability to explain the nature of a leadership position suggests a lack of a formalised process for selecting and changing leaders. Rates in 75 Quarter are higher than in 50 Quarter, but 50 Quarter has accumulated arrears worth approximately two months of billing.

One resident of 75 Quarter suggested that members of the katchi abadi leadership committee were embezzling some of the money. Another informant chided me for being so naive as to think that the 44 Quarter leaders were not also embezzling the committee funds.

Even in 44 Quarter, the communal system has not always worked out well. The communal meter must be put in someone’s name, which creates the opportunity for that person to take advantage of their position. Liaqat told me the following story based on 44 Quarter’s earlier experience with communal metering, which predated the current solution:

“A committee of about 20 people got together to choose the person whose name the meter would be put in. That man had not even a cycle to his name. He was a government employee, went to work wearing slippers. Now he has cars. He’s become a big-shot. This is Pakistan. Who has money is king. 44 Quarter residents brought legal suits against him, but we’d talk and he’d use his money to get away free.”

Liaqat sees how the communal system that now serves them well was once an opportunity for a member of their own community to exploit the residents of 44 Quarter. In his eyes, the legal system offered them no recourse to justice against someone with substantial resources.

In their quest to formalise their land tenure rights and secure service delivery, the residents of 44 Quarter have engaged with various political actors in a very pragmatic manner.

Liaqat tells me, “We’re not with any political party. We work with whoever is in power.” Through their different contacts — activists, academics, politicians, and also foreign embassies — the katchi abadi dwellers bring to bear whatever pressure they can on the CDA to complete the regularisation to which they are already committed.

Liaqat proudly tells me of how the 44 Quarter residents secured a majority of votes for the candidate they backed at their local polling station. The delivery of votes is an exchange for political representation in a purely transactional sense, with no regard to party platforms.

The residents of the katchi abadis used the language of rights more than anyone else I spoke with in Pakistan. In the blunt terms of Liaqat, “With a meter you get rights.” He adds, “We’ve spent hundreds of thousands of rupees on our houses, but there’s no benefit. When you have rights, you benefit if you invest in your house. With a proper road you could get a car in. That would be very valuable.

“After plotting, only 300 houses would be possible. Some people would be moved away. The Capital Development Authority initially offered [the outskirts of Islamabad], but that is too far away. Each household has three to four earners to sustain it. Their jobs are in Islamabad, the commutes would cost too much.

“The Capital Development Authority board has the plan for approval. It’s almost done. After plotting [regularisation], everyone will get No Objection Certificates. Each plot will have value. No problems with authorities in getting gas and electricity connections on our own.”

Liaqat is acutely conscious of the material benefits that can accrue from formal land titles. He hopes that the shady dealings with state officials will cease. His approach is entirely consistent with neoliberal arguments for the importance of property rights, which draw on [Peruvian economist] Hernando de Soto. Far from challenging the status quo structures of power and domination, it is a middle-class aspiration.

In some instances, katchi abadi leaders exploit institutional failures to extract rents of their own, adding one more obstacle to service delivery for the squatters. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the world of formal rights exemplified by a personal electricity connection takes on the appearance of an escape from these webs of exploitation and patronage.

However, a more careful look at the experiences of those with established formal claims on electricity services exposes just how unreal the social imaginary of citizenship with recognised rights is.

THE CHALLENGING TRANSITION TO FORMALITY

Unfortunately, many of the 44 Quarter residents who have succeeded in getting a toehold in the world of formal rights via an electricity meter in their name, have come to regret it.

Although IESCO’s compromise with the residents’ committee to provide electricity to 44 Quarter through communal metering is a functional solution (every household in 44 Quarter has electricity), it is viewed as second-best by the 44 Quarter residents. The communal arrangements notwithstanding, the 44 Quarter residents have continuously pushed to try to regularise their katchi abadi and secure the right to have individual meters for electricity supply.

A local NGO has been at the forefront of these efforts, chiefly in engaging with politicians and activists in putting pressure on the CDA to complete the process in a timely manner. 44 Quarter has been surveyed twice by the CDA. Households identified in the survey are noted by the CDA as residences with rights to municipal services.

Liaqat tells me that, for meters approved after the second survey, the demand notices (the distribution company’s equipment orders for the connection of new premises) were issued five years later, and that it was 18 more months until the meters were finally installed.

The money for these demand notices was given by a member of the National Assembly out of their official budget for development projects. Liaqat’s explanation for the delay is that the distribution company employees resisted because it would reduce their monthly earnings from the communal meters. Nonetheless, Liaqat and the 44 Quarter residents’ fight for individual meters had partly been won by the time of our meetings.

When some individual meters were installed in 2009, 44 Quarter residents were told by an IESCO officer that they would regret it and that they would want the old shared meters back. That prediction was borne out in 44 Quarter in many cases.

An individual meter can be a mixed blessing, as it requires a greater degree of direct dealing with the distribution company. The buffer from a communal meter is gone, and so are the protections that come with it. The experience of having an individual meter for a house is described to me by Adam, a young man of about 21 who is working in a community- based organisation in 44 Quarter. Adam’s family had received an unreasonably large bill exceeding 10,000 rupees:

Katchi abadis in Islamabad, similar to the one in F-7 pictured above, sometimes also have leaders that exploit institutional failures to extract rents of their own

Ijlal Naqvi (IN): What happened in the [IESCO] office?

Adam: The first man I went to see sent me to another one. The next one sent me to another one. He told me that there was no meter assigned to our house. I said then how are we getting a bill? He told us that they’ll check it out. That they’ll come and see if the meter is working properly. They said there’s a leak in our house, that the electricity is being wasted.

Liaqat: How can you have a leak with electricity? This isn’t a gas pipe.

Adam: They are taking the money from us in instalments. And the next bill came to 7,000. So we switched back to the shared meter, which is 1,200 per month. And now our bill from the meter — which we aren’t using — is 75 rupees. We aren’t the only ones. Our neighbours have complained about high bills too.

IN: There must be a form you have to fill in to complain about your meter.

Adam: I don’t know what form it is. They didn’t give me any form. We aren’t educated enough that we can deal with IESCO.

Adam and his family were poorly equipped to handle the challenge of dealing with the state on its terms. Although Adam describes himself as insufficiently educated to deal with IESCO, he tells me that he passed his Matriculation (10th grade) and, in conversation with me, is reasonably confident and able to express himself.

Nonetheless, the opacity of the process at the distribution company office and the behaviour of the distribution company staff are enough to deter him. Adam tells me that his family is resigned to paying this bill that they cannot afford and did not incur. Their retreat to the communal system is a retreat to a system where they will be protected from state officials’ efforts at predation by Shoaib and the other committee members.

A related experience to the abandonment of an individual electricity meter comes from some households from Islamabad katchi abadis who were relocated as a result of the regularisation process. These families were given small plots of land in the residential sectors of Islamabad, including the relatively well-off area of F-10. These families took possession of the land, but most of them sold their properties and returned to katchi abadis in Islamabad.

The choice to sell the land to which they had formal title in order to return to katchi abadis throws a different perspective on the value of formal rights and also the state’s responsibility to continue to provide such regularisation programmes to katchi abadi residents.

[American anthropologist] Matthew Hull reports a related set of circumstances, with villagers on the outskirts of Islamabad being compensated when they are relocated as a result of the city expanding, only for them to anticipate city planners by moving to the next area where expansion will take place in order to seek out further compensation.

The decision of the relocated katchi abadi residents to return to informality suggests that the programme for their relocation was poorly conceived. On the other hand, these families were best placed to judge how to manage their resources, and their actions suggest that living with a cash windfall and returning to informality can be preferable to having formal rights.

Nonetheless, in all the fieldwork and other interactions I had concerning electricity in Pakistan, the katchi abadi residents were the only people to invoke regularly a language of rights.

What are rights worth in this context? Formal rights seem to be worth very little. Claim-making on the state through formal channels is an exercise in frustration. Power relations (sometimes reduced to wealth) dominate proceedings, making it difficult to claim an entitlement, regardless of the black letter law underlying the claim.

The natural right to basic necessities is more compelling in achieving a compromise solution to the impasse between the electrical utility and the squatters, who are prevented from formal access to a service they are ready and willing to pay for.

These excerpts are slightly modified from the original and are being published with permission from the author and the publishers Oxford University Press from the book Access to Power: Electricity and the Infrastructural State in Pakistan

The author is an Associate Professor of Sociology and the Associate Dean for Curriculum and Teaching at the School of Social Sciences of Singapore Management University.
He can be reached at ijlalnaqvi@smu.edu.sg1

Header image: The opacity of the process at the Islamabad Electric Supply Company’s (IESCO) office and the behaviour of IESCO’s workers (pictured above) leaves many residents of Islamabad’s katchi abadis with a sense of abandonment | All photos by White Star

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 24th, 2023